Work-Life Communications
Issue IV – September 2009
Compiled by Meredith Ross
Boston College Center for Work & Family
This issue of the Partner Profile series presents the perspectives,
actions and goals of three of our Corporate Partners who use
unique approaches and methods to communicate about a broad
range of work-life initiatives.
Rolando Balli, Work/Life Strategist
Perspective
Having the best employee value proposition is a business driver for
Dell, and employees are telling us that work-life is important, including the way it is communicated. In July of 2007 we launched a social
media tool – an ideation blog – that we call Employee Storm. We had
used a similar version successfully with customers to shape products, so we brought it in-house to help shape internal offerings. Any
employee can post ideas about anything at Dell. Other employees
then comment on the idea and promote or demote it. To date, the
second highest-rated idea overall is “Going Green: How About Work
from Home?” People have also posted ideas about commuting solutions, buying vacation days, and other work-life topics. This has
been a revelation for us – because of this tool the top work-life needs
of our employees have really surfaced.
What we learned from Employee Storm prompted us to create
our first-ever work-life survey, launched in July 2008. Its distribution was viral – we posted the link on the blog and attached it to
email signatures. Only one email was sent to encourage participation, yet 19% of employees took the survey. One of the questions asked employees about their preferred communications
methods. Email ranked number one, followed by manager, and
then blog. Employee Storm remains an important tool – it helps
us learn exactly what our people want and need, and to target
solutions based on businesses and regions.
Goals
From reviewing our work-life survey data, it’s clear that there is
a direct link between management support of work-life and the
level of employee engagement and satisfaction. Employee engagement is one of our primary goals, so we are putting more
effort into communicating with senior leaders, encouraging them
to tell their stories and to become vocal supporters of flexibility.
Similarly, we are focusing communications to managers around
engagement in and support for work-life, particularly flexibility.
Actions
In addition to Employee Storm we use other social media, like Yam-
mer, a tool that allows the creation of groups on any topic of interest.
Like the blog, Yammer is the voice of employees, and it helps us to
identify problems and solutions. For example, one Yammer group,
called Homeworkers at Dell, was created by employees to share best
practices while working from home. Dell employees in the New York
region used the Yammer group to identify other local employees who
were working from home and wanted to get together to “co-work”
regularly. That’s a great solution for others who are working remotely
and want to feel part of a team.
Despite its strengths, social media does not replace in-person
interaction or other traditional communications. All-hands meetings and one-on-ones are very important venues, and we have
toolkits for those. We also have a new toolkit on “Global & Virtual
Teaming” to help people with working across time zones and locations. We are exploring video logs or vlogs as another vehicle.
As a green company, Dell tries to stay away from creating physical collateral such as posters, but otherwise, our communications
run the gamut. It is most impactful when people hear support for
work-life directly from a leader’s mouth. For example, Michael
Dell recently held an all-hands meeting for our employee resource
groups. When someone asked about work-life Michael said that
he’s excited about our experimentation around flexibility because
we want our people to be happy. If we can get enough people to
see that even the owner of the company supports them – it has a
huge impact on engagement.
Jennifer Demirdjian, U.S. Work/Life Manager, Office of Diversity
Perspective
Several years ago, the Firm conducted our national Great Place to
Work Pulse Survey for the first time. Our people told us that in
a demanding client service environment, work-life issues clearly
presented some of their largest and most complex challenges. We
also discovered that despite what we believed was a comprehensive communications approach, a large percentage of our people
were still unaware of our work-life initiatives. Up until that point,
we focused primarily on communicating messages through our
corporate intranet site, and during new hire on-boarding activities. We learned that people needed more real time, life-cycle focused communications. When you join the Firm as an associate,
back-up childcare is not always top-of-mind. It’s not until after
having a child – and perhaps even after returning from leave –
that our emergency backup childcare program has real meaning.
And while the information has always been available on-line, that
doesn’t mean our people always knew to look for it.
Goals
Since work-life means something different to each person at the
Firm, we know we need a multi-channeled, multi-focused approach that incorporates both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ communications.
It is also important that our messages move beyond our program
descriptions and policies, which until now defined the ‘old-way’
of talking about work-life. Many of our people felt this was simply
ineffective or even insincere if not partnered with clear statements
of support from our leadership and suggestions and examples of
how people could take advantage of the resources. In order to rebrand work-life, we need a new, dynamic message – one that our
people can be inspired by and personally identify with. We need
to reach our people through more creative channels and find ways
to reach them at different points throughout their career. We also
want to inspire our people to do what they do best – create custom and innovative solutions; and to recognize that the best solutions don’t always come packaged in a program – sometimes you
need to be your own trailblazer.
Actions
We’ve learned that there are as many communications vehicles as
there are definitions of work-life. We communicate through multiple lines of service and national newsletters, leverage our many
diversity networking circles (or employee resource groups) and
target the human resources community and national leave center – recognizing they are often the gatekeepers of information
and ‘first line’ communicators with our partners and staff during
pivotal life events. We now work closely with our national marketing and brand experts to design specific topic-oriented campaigns that often incorporate multi-media approaches such as
poster campaigns, videos and email messages from our leaders.
We have redesigned our intranet site and have created ‘one-stopshop’ microsites for people to access program information and
policies with greater ease. Two examples are our Prepared Parent
and Working Parent microsites. One of the most critical enhancements to our work-life communications has been the use of video
and personal testimonials. Video brings an initiative to life and
shows our people that we’re talking about more than a program.
Each installment of our Candid Conversations video series features a panel of experts on a topic such as work and motherhood,
or women and ambition. Personal testimony, whether in video or
on the web, illustrates the creative ways colleagues leverage Firm
resources to manage their personal responsibilities and outside
interests. These new efforts have really transformed both how we
talk about work-life quality and how our people obtain it.
Diana Phillips, Associate Director of Employee Relations
Perspective
Verizon Wireless has more than 86,000 employees at thousands
of locations across the U.S. including corporate offices, call centers, mall kiosks, and retailer partnerships. The company wants
to make sure that when employees are at work, they’re healthy,
stay focused on their jobs, and have a work-life balance that allows
them to be happy. In short, a healthy happy workforce makes for
healthy happy customers. Work-life communication is organized
around this health-based perspective.
Communications at Verizon Wireless are directed toward our
young, active workforce. The average age of employees is 34. The
company deliberately takes advantage of a wide range of com-
munication channels, using every opportunity to connect with
employees about our work-life programs.
Goals
Program utilization drives communications. Verizon Wireless
identifies key programs and utilization goals at the beginning of
each year and tracks utilization on a monthly and quarterly basis,
using a scorecard shared with the Senior Vice President.
Senior leadership participation is another goal. The executive
leaders are all very physically fit and understand the connection
between health and productivity on a personal level. All are members of company-owned health centers. When leaders speak to
employees at quarterly addresses or local town halls, they regularly make references to working out. These meetings are about
business results, and health is deliberately included as a way to
keep the issue at the front of employees’ minds.
An additional goal is to gain public recognition on best-in-class
lists, including the Working Mother’s Top 100 and Training magazine’s Top 125. The PR department uses a portal called vzweb,
where employees go for business information, to announce these
external awards to employees. The recognitions highlight worklife programs and positively impact employee morale.
Actions
Employees visit Verizon Wireless’s intranet site, “About You,” for
information about five categories of programs: work-life, health,
money, career, and training. The company posts new articles on
the homepage daily in order to remind employees to take advantage of the excellent programs offered.
Verizon Wireless has more than 30 health and wellness centers
in the U.S., typically located at call centers. At the health centers, 49 full-time coaches run approximately 450 activities and
events monthly, including nutrition classes, recreation leagues,
and screening tests. The coaches also do one-on-one personal
training – 6,000 appointments last year. Coaches are a critical
element of the work-life communications strategy. They email
one tip per day to the 13,500 members of the centers, including
reminders about the entire range of work-life programs, like EAP
and back-up care. The members become vocal ambassadors for
wellness and work-life, based on their personal experience at the
centers, as well as the information they receive from coaches.
Another very effective communications element is providing HR
representatives, those with direct relationships with managers,
supervisors, and employees, the tools they need – such as talking
points and brochures to use in group meetings and one-on-ones.
There is also one annual mailer sent to employees’ homes, so
that family members are aware of valuable resources available to
them, including EAP.
Finally, an annual enrollment fair at all major locations has had
great success. All national vendors are invited to participate and
the company takes the opportunity to educate employees about
the range of work-life programs supported by Verizon Wireless.